Kogei Seika vol.12■Published in 2019 by Shinchosha, Tokyo■A4 in size, linen cloth coverd book with endpaper made of Japanese paper (kozo)■176 Colour Plates, Frontispiece with a stencil dyed art work by Michiaki Mochizuki■Each chapter is accompanied by an English summary■Limited edition of 1200■12,000 yen (excluding tax)

The characteristics of stencil dyeing with white ground is well-represented in Bingata, the bright coloured fabric from Okinawa. When the ground is white,you can go wild in colouring, you can get the colour exactly as the pattern because the rice paste in the resist-dyeing process protects the area outside the stencil. The shape of the colour is the colour of the shape. To see the dizzying rapidity of variation in shape and colour is such a fun.

On the other hand, the white shape of ground-dyed fabric harmonizes with the ground but would never dissolve in. By the paste, it is left void in the shape of stencil. It is like the white clouds floating in the blue of the sky, or like the ever-changing clouds that stimulates one’s imagination. The artist can refuse any explanation to the details such as the finger gesture or depth of dimples of a shepherd. He can leave the viewer to imagine every expression. It is a genuine delight of the art and is all by the power of stencil. To make a stencil with paper, you do not say ‘to cut’ but ‘to carve’. Thus, comes the Japanese saying ‘Katabori (pattern carving)’. Does a carver dwells in the heart of a dyer? I think that is crucial. (Michiaki Mochizuki / Artist)

In Sapporo, there is a gallery called Sabita (Sabita is another name for Panicle hydrangea which bears white flowers in summer). A conversation with Mayumi Yoshida, the shop owner of Sabita inspired this collection of articles and photos introducing the work of the three artists.

The common theme among them is the Ainu (meaning a ‘man’ in their language). They are an indigenous people of Japan in Hokkaido, northern extremity of Honshu, Sakhalin, Kuril islands, and Kamchatka Peninsula, most of whom now live in Hokkaido (there were 17000 in Hokkaido according to a 2013 survey).

The first article is on Yoshiko Yamagishi, the embroidery artist, living in Sapporo. She takes her motifs from the traditional Ainu patterns. She used to own a craft shop called ‘Kronos’. Her late husband was the woodwork craftsman, Norifumi Yamagishi (1926─89) and was well-known for the wares based on the Ainu crafts and Nipopos (wooden dolls made as souvenirs). The article introduces the couple and their works.

The second article is on Shouya Grigg, the photographer, living in Niseko, Hokkaido. He came from Britain to Japan in 1994 and started a media design company in Sapporo. He now runs a hotel ‘Zaborin’ and a restaurant ‘Somoza’ at Niseko. The contrast of highly sophisticated architectural space in spectacular landscape is so dramatic making his business successful. The article introduces his photographs of his own collection of Ainu crafts.

The third article is on Yayoi Kuratani, who lives in Sapporo and has been the owner of antique shop 11gatsu (meaning ‘November’ in Japanese) since 2003. In her shop, there are things such as a tinplate shutter, a bunch of old paper, and a drawer full of old nails. By the description, it may not sound special, but the place has distinct atmosphere and is far from the ordinary. Many crafts of Ainu have their modern origins as souvenirs (the most well-known examples being wooden sculptures of a bear with a salmon), which makes it quite difficult for one to grasp the essence of Ainu. In this article, I have rather decided to introduce Kuratani’s uniqueness. (S)

This group of articles consist of two parts. The first part is on the exhibition ‘The Crafts for Everyday life in Japan’ in Taipei in November 2018. It was organized by Ryuji Mitani, the woodwork artist, and Xiaoman Hsieh, the expert in Taiwan-style tea ceremony. Thirteen artists participated, including Mitani, who also chose the other participating artists. The exhibition may be understood as something of an embodiment of ideas in Mitani’s book Living Crafts Beside Life published in 2018. Since the book’s theme is ‘What is New Standard Crafts?’, one can see the exhibition in Taipei as that of New Standard Crafts. The first part carries an essay by Mitani and my report on the exhibition. It also features two interviews: one with Ray Chen, the architect who designed the venue, and the other with another architect, Yoshifumi Nakamura, who went to the exhibition and personally knows these artists.

In my opinion, main artists of New Standard Crafts are the following five: Akito Akagi (the lacquerware artist, born in 1962), Masanobu Ando (the ceramic artist, born in 1957), Koichi Uchida (the ceramic artist, born in 1969), Kazumi Tsuji (the mouth-blown glass artist, born in 1964), and Ryuji Mitani (the woodwork artist, born in 1952). In the second part of the article I explain why I think these five are the main artists of New Standard Crafts. There are other artists in a similar vein. What is important is to extract the essence or concept of New Standard Crafts (stylistically their work is all white and plain, and stateless), for the 2000s in Japan was the age of New Standard Crafts.

2018 was a notable year when three out of above five New Standard Crafts artists published their books. Akagi’s Mingei in the Twenty-First Century was followed by Mitani’s Living Crafts Beside Life, and Ando’s Making Things One Way Or Another. All will be their literary magna opera. （(2018 then seems to mark the year when the first historicising phase of New Standard Crafts concluded.) The second part is devoted to their reviews by authors in whom I place my confidence: an editor of culture magazine, an art critic, and a historian of crafts in Japan. All of them are from a younger generation and are not artists of crafts. (S)

Takashi Murakami, the contemporary artist, born in 1962, is also a critique and a curator. The most famous curated by Murakami is the ‘Superflat’ exhibition held in Japan and U.S. from 2000 to 2002, which defined a new concept in the history of Modern Japanese Art after World War II and was highly appreciated globally.

The ‘Bubblewrap’ exhibition was held in Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto from 15th of December 2018 to 3rd of March 2019. It was also curated by Murakami and based on his own collection, to propose a new follow-up concept in art history to ‘Superflat’. The word ‘bubble wrap’ is originally the sheet of plastic used for packaging containing numerous small air cushions, but the long subtitle to the main exhibition title does much explanation:

‘After Mono-ha, the next established art movement is Superflat, but that means the interim period overlapping the years of Japan’s economic bubble has yet to be named, and I think calling it “Bubblewrap” suits it well. It especially makes sense if you incorporate the realm of ceramics. This show will contemplate this period through works including those from Takashi Murakami’s collection.’

On a panel in the exhibition, he explained the current of the art movement after Mono-ha as ‘Seibu Saison Group→Superflat→New Standard Crafts→The beauty of honorable poverty in the Antique Sakata.’ In the very last part of the exhibition, Murakami placed the exact replica (exterior and interior) of an antique shop itself —the Antique Sakata (established in 1973 and run by Kazumi Sakata) in Mejiro, Tokyo— and declares Sakata as ‘the answer’ for the exhibition. This article is on that ‘answer’, based on three interviews with Murakami. (S)

In this issue, Ikebana artist Toshiro Kawase (born in 1948) arranged flowers in the antique shop Irakado. The flower vases, the vase rests, and the decking are all from the shop. The accompanying essay is written by Yoshio Aoi(born in 1949), the shop’s owner and a longtime friend of Kawase, who is a year older.

I deeply feel that we are lucky to have Aoi in the antique world in Japan. He deals masterpieces and their fragments, as well as miscellaneous wares. He has an acute eye (and a deep pocket) for a vast range of antique ware. He does not set a ‘wall’; everything is fairly judged before him. I consider him to be someone who has embodied many of the best aspects of the Japanese antique.

In his dialogue with Aoi recorded in Kogei Seika (Issue 3, 2015), Sakata Kazumi (the owner of the Antique Sakata, born in 1945) remarks: ‘The things I deal in are often those chipped and tattered, in no way comparable to masterpieces in Irakado. But I still see some kind of similarity in what each of us deals with.’ Aoi nods to that.

In the same dialogue, Aoi confesses, ‘I love the art from the Heian period. Perhaps, my standard for Japanese Art is that of the Heian period. […] While ago, I realized that the beauty of the Heian art lies not in its historical background, but in somewhere deeper, perhaps, in Mono-no-aware (feeling sadness or pathos of things) as Norinaga Motoori (the famous scholar of Japanese classical literature, 1730-1801) has defined as the key aesthetics of Japanese classical culture. Mono-no-aware, to Norinaga, is something like ‘to know the heart of a flower.’ […] The art of Heian is not fragile; it actually has an sturdiness in form, which brings about the line so delicate and bold.’

When I was re-reading this passage for this issue, I realized that this was exactly the words that described Ikebana by Kawase. (S)

Every year, we host the Antique Festival to which antique dealers come together from all over Japan. During the festival, we give out pamphlets. This year’s issue contains an article in which every participating dealer introduces one of his or her favourite book on antique. Many mention a 1999 book, titled Antique Dealers in Japan: Thirty-Five Connoisseurs by Keisuke Aoyagi, a critique and scholar of Japanese literature, born in 1950. The book is my favourite, too.

His career as an antique lover comfortably exceeds fifty years. He has associated with many whose names are engraved in the history of Japanese antique, including his grandfather Nobuo Aoyagi (a film director), Takeo Hoshino (a man of refined tastes), Hideo Hata (an antiques critic), and Masako Shirasu (an essayist), to name but only a few. His book can be read like the Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian of ancient China, only dealing with the modern Japanese antique history.

‘In the endgame of my life, I am even worse off than when I was young, and with quailing eyesight, it is natural that my appetite for antique is declining.’ This is the first sentence of Aoyagi’s essay for this issue. I wanted to know his current views on antique, with his desire for antique weakening.

The logo for the Antique Festival is created by Mariko Igarashi (the antique dealer in Soyusha) in her hand writing. I have always been attracted to her calligraphy, her flower arrangements, and antique objects in her shop, each so unique. The objects photographed here are selected by her, according to a theme I requested: ‘Loneliness’. Perhaps, it could have been ‘Quietness’. (S)